


Nobody's Perfect

by Nervoustouch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Feels, Gambling, I Love You, Non-Consensual Touching, Sex, Strippers & Strip Clubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 14:53:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14875875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nervoustouch/pseuds/Nervoustouch
Summary: “You hungry Nobody?”“Why do you call me that?”“That's what you called yourself, to-to Big F, I heard you t-t-t-talking to him in that cell back on Canto. So loud, you two fuckers. And I quote,” his head tilted skyward. “You said, ah, you are ‘Nobody compared to your sister’. The d-dead one.” He clarified needlessly, and swiveled towards her, legs loudly brought down on the metal floor. The noise made her flinch.DJ pointed at her with the pack of cards. “So you’re Nobody.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Non-con at the start.

She woke dizzy, her consciousness spinning aimlessly in the dark.

The white haze sparked and the nausea made her swallow dryly again and again until her tongue felt fat and swollen.

“Finn,” she whispered, a bare breath of a sound. “Finn,” she tried again, but her voice wouldn’t obey. Not just her voice, but her body slumped heavy and motionless. She realized she was traveling in a ship by the taste of the thin, body temperature, recycled air. It was dark wherever she was, very dark. The only light a glowing red button by the room's closed door.

“Finn,” she mouthed again. He wasn't in the small room, that she could see, but she hoped somewhere he listened and would come. That somewhere, somehow he survived capture by the First Order, because she had survived.

She tried to move; but it felt like a huge rock was pressing down, making her body unresponsive. At some time she'd urinated in her sleep... had it been sleep? Or unconsciousness? The warm liquid had soaked the oversized First Order pants she still wore. Although she couldn’t move more than a few trembling twitches, she felt the damp itch against her skin. 

Mind was muddled, she closed her eyes. What had happened? Why was she here? Where was here? Was she still a prisoner of the First Order? With effort she flopped her head to the side. Why had they moved her? Why couldn’t she move? The questions weighed as heavy as the invisible rock. 

“Finn?” This time a little louder, with a breaking wail. A tear slid along the corner of her eye. Her breath felt labored. 

A memory formed. Betrayal, and the taste of leather, and a wall of white stormtroopers like an army of ghosts. Then she thought of the floor, hard as stone and black, she remembered staring at the floor close up, because she's going to be killed. A soldier was going to cut off her head with a lit Z6 baton, and she'd felt irrationally happy at the end, because she'd be with Paige. And at least she tried. 

But she's not dead. Probably not dead.

The door slid open with an almost blinding burst of light. Because her muscles didn't seem to work she couldn't look up completely. The slightly blurred shape of a person came closer. The figure, wavering in the light, bent over her and pressed a face uncomfortably close.

“You awake Nobody?” He asked in a low voice.

Not Finn. Heart sinking her mouth opened and she formed his name on her lips, but the words didn't sound. 

“Well, ah, look at you. You look not so good.” He raised his hand to her face and she flinched, squeezing her eyes shut. A dirty fingertip touched the tear on her temple. He brushed away the liquid and slowly moved his finger to his mouth, licking at the salt water.

“I'm going to to-to-to look after you Nobody, so d-don't you worry.” The slicer moved his hand back to her face and traced her jaw line down to her parted lips, pressing lightly. “And you're going to look after me.”

“Don't,” she managed to say, gasping the word. 

“That's my name.” 

She closed her eyes and she felt his hands brush through her tangled hair, down her neck, across her shoulders. The hesitation was minuscule, just a twitch in time before he moved palms over her breasts, cupping them before quickly, running his fingers over their peak. He moved down further, rubbing across stomach and hips down to where she had wet herself.

He drew back in surprise, Tsk’ed at her, a hitched mess of uncontrolled sound.

“You made a mess.”

He moved to the end of the bed and pulled off her boots, letting them fall with loud clunks on the hard floor. Then he knelt over her once more, he undid the buckle on her pants and pulled. They slid off easily joining the boots; finally he curled his fingers around the elastic of her underwear.

Moaning she weakly drew her knees together, her limbs feeling like they had been buried in sand and now they had to pull their way out after being buried alive.

“Let me help you,” he murmured and pulled a little, and the soaked fabric slid half way down her hips. “You don't want to stay ah, d-d-dirty, do you?”

‘Stop’, she wanted to say, but it came out just a gasp of air.

He dragged off the underwear. The air pricked against her damp skin giving her goosebumps.

“I'll look after you,” he repeated. “You don't have to fight no more.”

He moved her body and stripped off the blanket from underneath her, tossing the wet items into a pile.

She started to cry; whatever had made her unconscious slowly dripped away left her more responsive. The feeling crept back into her body, but she stayed still, stayed floppy, and she let him move her, cover her with a clean blanket. Then his hands firmly grasped her body, held her briefly and moved her up against a pillow into a low sitting position. 

“You thirsty? Yeah you are,” he mumbled and left the room. He came back with a silver coloured mug and lifted it to her lips.

She eyed him with distrust.

“Just w-w-w-water darlin’.”

It tasted like water, it dribbled around the cup making her neck wet, but it helped her focus more. She flexed muscles in tiny bursts, testing them from toes and fingers to hips and neck. 

He sat on the bed like a kind parent soothing a child's nightmare, but she knew he was anything but. She could see his heavy lidded eyes watching her, one of his tics made his mouth twitch as he gazed curiously, then he smoothed the movement with a hand, the one dominated by oversized rings. His fingers ran across the thick grey in stubble on his chin, hiding his lips.

A surging dagger of pain in her stomach made her wince, she inhaled sharply, unconsciously lifting a hand towards her core before letting it sag again in the blankets.

“You got beat up a bit, we all d-did, but you're safe now. I, ah, I got you out,” he swelled up, straightened his shoulders. “Us nobodies got to-to stick t-t-together.”

“Finn?” She asked, but she knew before he answered, the way he glanced away, brushed at his jacket. There was no way out for Finn. She remembered the buzzing energy of the baton as it hovered nearby and the order to make their death a slow one.

“Don't worry about Big F, he got what he wanted. He's a hero now. The hero's always die young, while their still p-p-p-pretty. I saved you, I got you out.” He touched her face again, a hot hand against her skin. Then he leaned forward and brushed his jaw against hers, she could hear him breathing, sucking air through his nose in a quickened rhythm.

One of his hands slid under the blanket he'd placed over her. So much for the faint hope he was going to treat her with any decency, that maybe he had rescued her out of some kindness and not as someone to take advantage of. Just another betrayal from a being they were never even meant to be with. 

The hand slid under her thigh and pulled her leg up to spread her thighs open. She stared ahead not wanting to react. Her eyes turned harder than to steel, mind ready to retract or fight. The feeling of him patting closer and closer to her slit made her sob, creating a noise like a growling gasp from her chest.

Far from making him retreat the sound made him press a little harder. His lips started to kiss her face, a wide tongue licking at her skin. His breath heavy and cloying. His movements pushed her bangs into her eyes. Hair on eyelashes scraping uncomfortably, and for all the heavy petting, the abuse that he was doing, she felt angry at her hair. How dare her own body turn against her also?

Hearing her huff of distress he started talking again. “You still sedated Nobody? A little, I know, but you're awake. I really want to keep t-t-t-t-touching you, but I heard what you did to that general. I don't want to lose a f-f-finger. Well unless...” She felt him push a finger inside her, his ring pressing cold metal on her leg. It felt medical. There was not one part of the experience which made her want any intrusion from this monster. Yet, he pushed further inside watching her reaction, breathing down her neck. She turned her head away.

“Awww, you're no f-fun.”

He stood up, withdrawing his finger and wiping it along the blanket. “Don't get any ideas, I got you at great, ah, expense, I rescued you,” he said it fiercely and with a tone of scolding, as if she owed him something. “So be a good girl Nobody. When the d-d-drugs wear off you can come out and eat.” 

She felt the back of his finger stroke her cheek. The one that had been inside. More fool him, she grabbed his wrist and pulled, knowing that the angle he was at he was surer to fall forward than back. He did stumble, his chest jarred her and she elbowed back towards his face, but whatever it was that made her immobile was still pulsing through her slowly, and the force wasn't enough to do more than push him, twisting his head uselessly.

He laughed, an almost silent chuckle, and stayed on top of her, she could feel him breathe, his pulse. He slid onto the bed next to her, drawing her body against his, one arm easily holding her from moving, but she wriggled none the less.

“Want me to stay so bad?” He whispered into her hair. “I c-c-c-can for a whiles, but you have to be good, or I'll give you more of that knockout juice and then what? You want that, I, ah, you want m-me here with you resting?”

“DJ stop,” she strained.

“I didn't think so.” He rubbed her, he ground his hips against her and she felt his hardness pressing into her back.

She strained to edge away. “What do you want?” 

“I told you, I was going to look after you Nobody. I like you.” DJ lay, just dry humping her ever so slightly. She could smell him, unwashed and acidic. Under the stolen First Order clothes he was the same scruffy snake she and Finn had found in a jail cell. After a while, a strained game of her struggling and he gripping her to repeated stillness, he cleared his throat. “I might let you go, even though I told them I was going t-to-to-to sell you, then again I might just c-c-c-c-call your Resistance friends, if they still out there. But I dunno, I ah, don't join sides you know, don’t get involved unless I’m getting paid. It's all the same in the end. How much would the Resistance pay for you partner?” 

She lay, stiff, unresponsive, holding her anger in a tight wad of hatred, until he rolled off the bed and left the room.

***

She cried, thinking about Paige and Finn and the rest of her friends, and then her family, the ones that she could remember. She cried about the injustice. She cried for how she ended up stuck with a criminal. Trapped with a man who was trash, nothing but dirty, dirty opportunistic scum, no doubt a rapist and worse. They had never even asked him why he had been in that jail cell. She cried until she shook with rage and she could cry no more.

After a long while she sat up and with shaking hands drank the rest of the water. The open door spilled light into the room, the pile of clothes and sheets stank on the floor. Wobbly legged she went to the fresher area and locked the door. It didn't mean much, he could open a jail cell and he could open a dinky little lock on a ship’s bathroom. Determined to at least clean the smell off her she ran the fresher enough to jump in and out, scrubbing at the places he had touched. 

She had been wearing her own shirt under the officer’s jacket and she wrapped a towel around the bottom half of her body. Searching through cupboards in the bedroom she found clothes of sorts, a pair of large mechanics overalls, left over from the ships previous owner. Rolled up they practically swam on her. She wished she could shorten the straps, but at least they were clean and covered everything. Her teardrop pendant swung around her neck and its weight gave her strength. 

Stomach churned. A look around the room revealed nothing big or heavy enough to be a weapon. Maybe one of the large glass sculpture things? She sighed and ran through her options. There was not a lot she could plan till she knew more about what he wanted. DJ had said there was food; she couldn't remember the last time she ate. Her stomach and side still ached from the beating she'd suffered. But the hunger gnawed also. There hadn’t been time to eat since before the bombing battle where Paige had... where they had lost a lot of pilots, and that was a long time ago. She was strong. She would not let him take advantage again.

Stepping out of the false comfort of the room she realized that the ship she was trapped on was the same one he had stolen from Canto, a yacht called the Libertine. It was large and expensive with silver and pale blue features. Around the curve in the passageway she would see the spiral stairs leading to the sitting area and bridge. Inhaling she put a boot to the bottom tread and tested her walking. It was okay. She would be okay.

DJ was sitting in the captain’s seat. Facing the expanse of stars, one foot on the edge of the panel, legs splayed like one of those alpha male types who spread themselves over every inch of any seat.

Music was playing, jarring, electric instruments sounding out of place in the lush grandeur of the luxurious cockpit; he tapped his toe occasionally to the beat. In his hands a pack of cards were being shuffled in a complicated pattern. They reversed and circled, flipped and traveled. Instead of Sabacc cards these were smaller and rectangle, the plainer sort used to play Planetary Poker. There was a plate of half eaten food in front of him.

Coughing she cleared her throat.

With two fingers he held up a card for her to see without turning around.

Two of diamonds. 

The card flipped effortlessly back into the pack.

“You hungry Nobody?”

“Why do you call me that?”

“That's what you called yourself, to-to Big F, I heard you t-t-t-talking to him in that cell back on Canto. So loud, you two fuckers. And I quote,” his head tilted skyward. “You said, ah, you are ‘Nobody compared to your sister’. The d-dead one.” He clarified needlessly, and swiveled towards her, legs loudly brought down on the metal floor that the noise made her flinch. DJ pointed at her with the pack of cards. “So you’re Nobody.”

The slicer looked her over, his pouched eyes sweeping across, flickering past her face to the air above her head. She stared back with a mask of disinterest on her face. He was big but, he was old and would probably break easily. He was a coward for taking advantage of her when she couldn’t fight back, she knew that much. 

There were tools spread across the room, any one of them could be used to kill him. That was what she would have to do. Get the ship, put out a signal, get back to the Resistance. If they still survived. 

He smiled crookedly up at her stony face, as if guessing the thoughts that swirled. “I've locked the c-c-c-controls, nothing can be changed without the ah, code. Don't get any ideas, or you'll be floating out here forever.”

“I'm a mechanic, a technician.”

“Well, whoop-whooptie-do. You ain't cracking my lock up Nobody. Come eat.” DJ tapped the copilot chair and she reluctantly moved towards him. She perched on the edge of the chair, strengthening muscles, ready to pounce given the opportunity. The plate of mixed food pushed towards her. It looked like he had tasted everything which made her feel gross, but also meant at least, hopefully nothing was drugged. So she started to eat while watching him warily, hands continued to shuffle the card deck and occasionally he adjusted his hat. It had ‘don't join’ written on a scratched up metal plate. 

DJ yawned as she finished. 

“Now I can sleep. You can watch.” As if she had been simply napping while he worked. He tilted his chin up. “I realize, ah, we, ah got off on the wrong foot.”

She glared.

“I ah, haven’t had a lot of sleep. Had a lot of t-t-t-trouble on C-Canto,” he rubbed his face with the pack of cards. Slid the edge from eye to chin all the while avoiding eye contact like the scumbag he was. He was excusing his behavior with his weak justifications. “I did save you.” He added quietly. 

She had no forgiveness to offer him. “Where are you taking me?” She asked instead.

“Us? We’re going to Corellia, to get the ship scrubbed, if it c-c-can, ah, be done, and get more food. Then... he opened his hand. Where to? Where you wanna go? I got the credit now. Maybe.”

“Are you serious? I need to get back to the Resistance right now. My friends are in trouble.”

“What if they are all gone? Blown up?” He made the noise of an explosion, his hands tented then fingers spread, cards spread, fanned into a widening gesture. “Where then?”

She considered and folded her arms, still on guard and still ready to attack. “Then, I want to go anywhere I can fight.”

One of his eyes twitched. “You keep the war going no, no matter what?”

"You creep on girls who can't move, so don't preach to me about what I want to do," she frowned. "I’m not a wookiee to owe you a life debt for something you supposedly did for me.” 

“Touché Nobody,” he screwed up him face, his tic flickered and he waited for it to pass. “I'll leave you alone. You d-d-d-don't nag me with your ideals and we can get to anywhere and,” he waved at her. “But you owe me, I did save you.”

“I don't owe you anything.”

“Nah Nobody, you owe Don't,” he tapped his hat. “Everything. Go pose the innocent hssss-hero elsewhere, I won't listen. Watch the screen. Come get me if there's t-t-t-trouble. Otherwise clean up in here,” he pointed at the empty plate and left swaggering to the bedroom.

As soon as he was gone she switched off the music with an over loud thunk and stared at the black expanse of space, then picked up a tool. She would bypass the code system. Get the Libertine to the last place the Resistance had radioed too, and find out what happened. If she had to build it all again herself, she would. Fuck that stupid criminal.

Putting an edge to the panel her hand shook. She wiped her eyes, her long, black fringe kept brushing back across her face. The tears hovered, the pain of loss crippled her thoughts as much as the drugs had earlier stopped her body. 

Her sister. She hadn’t even got to mourn her own fucking sister. The last of her whole family. Never had she been so alone and aimless. Even when she had been digging holes in the dark as a slave in the mines. She hadn’t got a chance to disable the First Order Tracking Control Complex for a cycle, the plan had been a failure, then by now they'd all be dead and she remembered as a traitor. One who abandoned ship while others died fighting.

After a time of pointless regrets she returned to her current situation, pushed the past down, and lifted the panel off the ship computer, studying the wires and other circuitry. It looked neat untouched. DJ may look like he’d just fallen out of a dumpster, but he was clean enough here. Poking at a row of switches she couldn’t tell what had moved, if anything, perhaps he'd lied? But a short message asked for an access code when she tapped the ship’s mapping program. What next? Impossible to know. She typed a few numbers, but got locked out on the third try. This was not her expertise, the wires, the electrics, the fans and hardware she could fix. Programming, hacking, slicing, not so much, and DJ had blocked all access, not just the navigation system, but the maps, the radio, even the search functions. She could probably isolate the control panel, but what good would that do? She looked around. Maybe there was another access point.

Let the ship smash into a sun, she couldn't change the programmed route anyway.

Picking up the plate she went down into the lounge area with the couch and holoprojector. The projector was locked off. She couldn’t even work out how he’d disabled the power supply. Instead of continued experimentation she headed into the tiny ship's galley. Often food storage devices like refrigeration units had reorder panels on them. On this fancy yacht there was no doubt there would be one. 

Sure enough a touch sensitive screen was on the fridge telling the time for Canto Bight. Smiling she tapped it and it blinked to a generic grocery list from the previous owner. A lot of booze and take away. She tapped to search, but the fridge just went to food options, still it was on a network.

Rose set her mouth to her stubborn frown and stretched her fingers. This would be a challenge.

***

“What the fuck Nobody?” DJ stood in the doorway staring at the removed refrigeration door, computer parts and tools spread across the tiny space. He picked up a connector from the dirty plate they had eaten off earlier and dropped it again. It spun across the plate and onto the floor. “C-c-couldn’t you have just stabbed me in my sleep. Fuck this mess.”

She bristled. “I am getting a message to the Resistance.”

“That working for you, huh?”

Turning back to the part she was fitting she ignored him, but she held her tool tightly fisted in her hand. Let him just try something. 

“I thought I told you... We gotta get back to the ah, that is, the cockpit and jump to Corellia. I-I just got word that there is a scrubber who’ll rename the ship’s service record and switch over the serial numbers. Then we’ll have our own little fancy space yacht.”

“'We' don’t have anything DJ,” she answered.

“Yeah, it’s mine, but you want to… no, no,no,no,” he stuttered. “Not like that, fuck Nobody, who taught you anything?” He stepped forward and tried to take the tool off her, she flinched away from his outstretched hand. He picked up the part she had been working on instead. “You need, need to disable the spacer first. Fuck.”

Standing head bowed, hands clenched, as he towered over her, she tried to inch away, but the galley was too small. DJ patted his pocket, indifferent to her obvious unease. “Soniced my clothes, don’t have the right tools right now,” the realization that he wasn’t prepared seemed to rattle him though. He dropped the part into the sink and exhaled loudly. “You want to get back to your f-friends then get up to the cockpit.”

*** 

The yacht was easy to direct to port. Rose only had basic flight training, enough transporter experience to move ground equipment really, but together they wrestled the acceleration compensator and managed to land on a wide strip of potholed, blackened cement. Droids in wheeled tug equipment pulled the Libertine into an enormous rusty hanger.

DJ spent a lot of time stuttering to ground crew through his comm unit and swearing about the cost of the work. They were stuck on the ship if the deal fell through. She listened intently at his wheeling and dealing.

“Two weeks,” the Toydarian ship technician finally growled.

DJ whistled.

“I can’t wait two weeks,” Rose bristled.

The Toydarian waved his lumpy, three fingered hand. “You need to replace one hundred year old parts with matching serial numbers. Not easy, not cheap. Maybe try the Telgorn Corp, see what they say.”

“Two w-w-w-weeks yeah, do it,” DJ agreed, and he lowered the deployable staircase. The image of the Toydarian flicked away.

He turned to her as she sat silent in the copilot chair. “Let’s go out,” he suggested.

“You know, I’m okay. I’ll stay,” she replied firmly.

“C’mon Nobody don’t be like that. You going to blame a m-mmm-man for trying when he sees the most beautiful girl in his life?”

“You think I want to go anywhere with you? You think I'm just angry because you're sleaze? Hundreds of Resistance probably died, because you wanted to save your own skin.” His pack of cards sat on the panel between them. She dashed them onto the floor, they spread out like a black, red and white storm had passed by.

He considered her coldly. “Oh,” the noise laden scornful amusement. “That’s what you’re still mad about. Let me, ah, let me remind you, we didn't die because of me.”

“Because of the information you gave the First Order. Beings died, defenseless beings.”

“So you keep saying. It was my one bargaining chip, that's all I had. You'd rather your head was rolling around their fucking f-f-f-feet?”

It was no use arguing with him. He could twist the facts to whatever he wanted to believe, she might as well argue with the ship or the couch for all the difference it would make. Her head hurt. A headache from stress rooted in her skull. She reached up and tugged at the twist of electrical wire she used as hair tie. It stuck tangled tight.

DJ watched her bend the wire, tug her hair. His hands reached out and weaved left then right, trying to outrace her own efforts at release, but finding her stubborn. Rejecting all assistance. She felt that if he touched her one more time she would shatter.

“Don't,” she ordered.

His mouth opened, then he closed it. He reached anyway, ignoring her protests and ducking head. “Just let me, he told her. You're making it worse.” His fingers worked quickly, in an instant she was free. Her hair fell down and she massaged her scalp. He held out the wire and dropped it into her palm.

"I don't want your help," she told him. 

He moved his leg, the one where his holster sat, he was packing his side arm while planetside, the butt propped up against the chair. His leg spread, touched hers so their knees met. She jerked away. Without moving further away DJ leaned back and propped his head on a hand. The other hand resting on his thigh, thumb moving his rings, pushing them around and around his fingers.

“Let's cut a deal partner,” he said. “You stop treating me like I'm the bad guy, like I’m the one who messed up with the plan, and like I give a f-f-f-fuck about whatever it is you fight for when, when I knew you for about, ah, a couple of hours. I told you I have some business, and after I'll take you wherever you want.”

She twisted the wire in her hand into a tight rope of metal.

He leaned forward and put his arm around her, the touch made her shrink away, but he just ran a palm down her arm. “It's the best deal you got Nobody, and I can be real nice.”

“My name is Rose.”

“Sure it is, but you, you know what they say. ‘A rose with any other name would smell as sweet.’ Nobody. So, be a good girl and just cruise with a man till I can work out the details. I need a mechanic, a smart one.”

“You just need someone to help you fly this ship,” she spat back and his condescending flattery fell flat.

“You know, that too.” His large hand lingered on her own, it felt odd, overt, she felt he knew it annoyed her, she hated it, and that's why he left it touching her.

“If I say yes,” she saw he smiled at her words. “You can't creep on me anymore. We just do whatever you have to do, get the ship scrubbed, whatever. Then I get back to the Resistance.”

“Now you got it. That's the plan partner.”

“Don't call me that, I prefer the other one. I am not your partner.”

“Nobody it is.”

“Nobody,” she agreed, black hair, free from its bindings swung forward and covered her face.

***

She stayed on the ship for five days, ate the food that got delivered. Slept when DJ was out and spent as much time as she could avoiding him.

Her distaste at his company didn’t seem to bother him, if anything it amused, or confused him, or he ignored her withdrawal from his presence. True to his word though he kept his hands to himself, but it didn’t stop him from talking to her as they passed. She never knew what he was going to say, sometimes it was straightforward; he wanted to know what to get for dinner or how her work on the refrigeration computer was going. Other times he asked her odd questions like what numbers she disliked, or how many times had she had seen a colour the day before. Or, he would just talk, tell her in stuttering detail, of a scam he’d tried. Correcting his perceived mistakes out loud as he ran through the complex stories.

Every day cycle, late in the afternoon he would ask her if she wanted to go out into the city nearby.

On the fifth day she was holding her pendant, sitting quietly on the couch as he drifted by.

From across the room he looked at her, then at the lockers. “I was never g-going to keep it,” he told her.

She didn’t answer. He was lying. Whatever made him pass her pendant back to her back before they got caught, whatever made him take her with him now. She didn’t want to know.

DJ pushed his hat back, then tucked his right arm against his lapel. Mouth formed invisible words for a second. “Going out,” he eventually said, low pitched, almost voiceless. “Coming?”

She rubbed her thumb over the roses on the pendant and hooked it back over her neck, tucking it safely under her shirt. 

“Sure. Why not.” 

***

They discussed clothes. Rose was frustrated by her choices of overalls and a First Order uniform. The uniform she didn’t want to wear and the overalls were a pain, the straps caught on everything and they sagged. It was the first conversation with DJ she’d actually felt present in. Partly present. He changed the subject to whatever was on his mind. Then would swing back to the talk of clothes only to inform her he didn’t bother much with it all, but he liked the new First Order socks and boots he’d taken.

“We match, our shoes do,” he pointed out. “I’ll get you a dress. Yeah.”

“I’d rather something a bit more useful. Not a dress.”

His head tilted sideways. They had taken hired transport to a marketplace and DJ seemed to know exactly the places he wanted to go. She watched men and women, black with grease from ship building. They smoked cigarettes and cuffed swearing children who got to close. He’d told her to look out for pick pockets, but there was nothing in her pockets so the advise was unnecessary. There were smells of food, torn coloured flags flickering in the slight breeze, and beings everywhere choking the thin spaces between buildings. A city unlike any she had seen.

With her hands stuck in the front of her overalls she watched, and noticed, he deliberately slowed for her. He walked a little zig-zag, creating longer paths for them. A straight street? Not for DJ, he would weave and step close to a building, then realize she was not close enough, she having taken the easiest path, and he would step back beside her as if he’d never diverted.

“Let’s…” He started, but the rest of the sentence wasn’t finished. DJ was looking ahead, his eyes narrowed.

A unit of stormtroopers were spreading into the street. Their white armor standing out starkly among the crowds of brown and grey clad locals. The soldiers had set up a sort of roving check station, one that gathered beings ID and entered the information into devices they carried.

“Aw, fuck this,” DJ hissed and looked slowly around, slowing to a crawl. “We can’t turn around, there are spotters. No ID, my b-b-b-blaster, officer boots. Fucking Resistance Nobody.”

“I thought you were released by the First Order?”

“I-I-I-I was, but I told them I was going somewhere else. Don't really want them to see me here. To see you here. I was advised not to ‘come to their attention’. Bet I'm on their list again too, never get off now. C’mon,” he tugged her around. As one of the stormtroopers almost reached them they casually ducked around a corner, a gap between two buildings, just a very short access ally to a side door long rusted shut. No escape, no way out.

Her foot nudged a piece of discarded hard plastic, and what sounded like the world's loudest clatter echoed. DJ pushed her against the wall scowling. ‘Shh,’ he hissed needlessly, a finger lifted briefly to lips, his back turned to the open end of the ally, effectively blocking her from view. Like he was lounging against a wall, just a disheveled street being blending into the other rubbish. She could see the shadows of some of the stormtroopers pause nearby, heard their boots clatter and their demands for ID to passers by. He stared down at her, and she returned his glare trying to read his face, to see if he had a plan for if they were spotted. He pressed against her, breaking their angry staring contest, he looked up as if in prayer, ever hiding any true emotion. Lips pursed like he was about the whistle. She continued her watching, and studied his features as both their bodies curled into the thin shadow of the building’s wall. An old scar streaked across a cheek bone. His mouth seemed over large, his nose dominated his face. His eyelids always looked tired, his face a shade grey. Stubble flecked thickly across his jaw. The features of a probable drinker, the pallor of someone who worked in the dark. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her? 

Fresh meat no doubt.

As soon as the stormtroopers passed she wriggled, signaling an end to their forced intimacy, but he hovered, blocking her escape and instead of freeing her, pulled her close. Hands circled her waist and he pressed against her, his gun trapped lewdly between them, a hardness against her thigh.

“Get off me,” she hissed and tried to push DJ off. She shoved fruitlessly against his chest, but he grabbed her hands and yanked them down. She almost laughed with shock when his face sunk into her neck as he started to kiss her roughly. His stubble scraped her skin like a sand blast.

From this angle she saw the troopers shadows circle back, they had to stop there, so close. A few feet away, close enough that she couldn't scream and scratch without awakening their unwanted attention. His kisses moved to her face and grew more desperate. Lips met lips and she inhaled in a gasp of breathy air as he took full advantage of her inability to protest. She stayed frozen, unresponsive and he drew her arms around him. Now they were embracing while kissing, she tried to hover without touching, but his attention twisted her off balance, so she had to grasp at his jacket to stop sliding down the wall. 

DJ took this as some sort of signal to increase his ardor. Hands moved to her face and pulled her more firmly into his own, cupping her chin and drinking her up like a thirst he couldn't quench. She stared at his face trying to catch his eye again and signal her hatred for his intrusion, but his eyes stayed firmly skyward to an almost comical degree. Then his tongue pressed into her mouth and he sighed, exhaling through his nose, warm breath on her cheek. She drooped through his pawing. His hands moved to her face, controlling and guiding.

What little respect he had ever so slowly earned from her in recent interactions dipped back to a firm hatred. Why, why, why had she thought he would honor any deal? What would be in it for him? Why had she let him get this close? She was the universe’s number one fool.

A tic fluttered against her lips, the touch of his tongue wavered. Her own tongue attempted to move out of the way, but she inadvertently brushed at his as she moved. The unwanted clash was like pouring fuel on a burning fire, DJ shoved a knee between her legs and his hand tightened, slipping around the back of her head to hold her tighter.

The troopers had long past, for good she was sure, yet still he kissed her. She shoved, this time harder, and wrenched her face to the side. It took some deep breathes to get her focus back while he leaned forward to attack again. Raising a hand she headed him off.

“C’mon, you liked that. You taste uh-uh-mazing.”

“No more creeping DJ!”

He seemed shocked. “But you wanted too, Nobody, you wanted…”

“No I did not.”

He stepped back, straightened his jacket and pushed back his hat. “Whatever, we didn’t get carded. Saved you again. So yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.”

They stepped back into the street. He was quiet, hands in pockets. If he had thought she had enjoyed any part of his sick attentions he was sadly mistaken. 

He bought them dinner at a street stall and they ate standing up, again in the shadow of a building. DJ ate turned away. Good let him sulk, she thought.

 

***

“Pick a dress,” he ordered, hands hooked into his belt. “Something red,” he added to the startled shop assistant who showed them to a rack of women’s clothing in different shades of red. He deftly cut off any escape for Rose, filling the narrow space between wares and the exit.

“Choose,” DJ told her. “I want you in something with a skirt though. A short skirt, really, really short.”

The clothes were all random, this part of the city didn't cater much to women and certainly wasn't a hub of fashion.

“I don’t want a dress!” She stomped her foot.

“That’s all I’m buying.”

“Anything then,” she advised and folded her arms.

The shop assistant hovered and pulled out two dresses. Rose pointed to one at random and turned.

“Try them on,” he urged. 

She stared at DJ who looked calm as always and thought about attacking him with a coat hanger, she longed to garrote his stupid face from his stupid body. How dare he? She couldn’t even choose what she wanted and she didn’t want anything more from him. She’d rather wear the same clothes forever.

Instead of making the scene she longed for, Rose decided to be the better woman. Let him buy a dress she would never wear. Pulling both dresses from the assistant she stormed into the change room and kicked at the wall. 

The first dress was okay, nothing to get excited about. The second, unthinkable, ridiculous. He pulled back the curtain without a word of warning and appraised her, eyebrows lifting. A high pitched whistle sounded from his lips.

“That's the one,” he offered the salesbeing a credit chip.

“I can't wear this. Be reasonable. This is not street wear, it’s not even fit for walking out the door in.” 

“Leave it on,” he ordered. “You wanted clothes, you got them.”

She turned back to the mirror. The dress was short, not as short as his earlier request, but the sides had ridiculous triangle cut outs at her waist, her skin showing through, making her feel over exposed. She might as well walk around in a red hammock.

Wrinkling her nose she made a noise like an internal scream. She was too fat. Too round all over. Too short. This dress was too revealing and too red. It was obviously designed for going to a cantina dance club, or a prostitute. Or both. 

Rose had never been the pretty sister. That had been Paige.

He slunk into the change room, curtain swishing wide for the whole shop to see, and she snapped out of her contemplation and turned away from her reflection. “Finger holes,” he laughed and touched her skin revealed by the cut outs before moving his hands up under the material.

“No!” She pushed him angrily. “You promised.”

He slid them out and held up his outstretched hands in mock restraint. “I already paid so get out. I said don't b-b-b-bother ah, changing,” he added as she reached for her overalls. Just put your shoes back on. DJ watched as she pulled on her boots. His eyes rested on her cleavage, soft curves reflected in the mirror as she bent. He leaned his temple on the dressing room door frame, as if deep in thought. 

DJ passed her a bag for her old clothes and she dropped them in.

As she came out of the room the sales assistant held out a coat. It had a fur trimmed hood and was a muddy green.

“Got you a jacket,” he said.

She put it on, grateful for the dignity, it covered the side cut outs, in fact it covered all of the dress, and the soft fabric snuggled warm around her neck.

“Thank you,” she told him curtly.

“No, don't be nice Nobody, you'll hurt yourself.”

Pulling up the hood she blocked him from view. Blocked his stupid giant head. Why did DJ have to swing from creep to thin kindness? Why couldn’t he just be decent? Or at least leave her alone.

Outside the shop he opened the door of a hired transporter and asked her if she wanted to go anywhere else.

“I just want to get back to the ship.”

The transporter driver would only drop them a few streets from their hanger destination. The neighborhood they wanted was too questionable for him to go any nearer in the dark, sor o he told them, even inside a vehicle. Rose wondered how he could dump them there then? Just outside a place which the driver believed to hold certain doom. DJ seemed unworried. He’d been moving around after dark for days, just shook his head, paid the driver, pulled up the collar on his jacket and started his meandering walking.

The rest of the way to the illegal shipyard they got accosted by beggars on every corner. Hands stuck out asking for credits. DJ pulled her past them, hand on blaster. Even when she slowed for children their arms outstretched, thin voices pleading.

“Leave it,” he said. “You want to get back.”

“Doesn't it affect you? All this poverty?”

“I suppose you think the good guys could swoop in and fix it all? You think giving them credit helps?” He motioned to a group of nearby people, eyes glittering in the dark. “If the whole universe was free tomorrow not one being here would be better off. Not one. I paid to get my ship scrubbed and that shit is expensive, and I paid for s-s-supplies, for your clothes, I even paid to enter the atmosphere. I paid enough Nobody. I fed some families. But you don't care about us regular people, I suppose only good do good and bad do bad.”

When they finally got to the ship she was relieved there had been no issues. Guiltily she reminded herself that the people out there, the ones who made their own children beg to strangers, were just trying to survive. Wasn’t that what she was doing?

The toydarian yelled at DJ as he passed that his shop was not a post office, that he didn’t want strange people coming around. It seemed a delivery box was waiting for them, jammed roughly into the ship’s landing gear. In her efforts to reprogram the fridge unit to send a message to the Resistance it seemed Rose had re-ordered the last delivery on the computer. Somehow, almost impossibly, the box had made it to them and hadn’t been stolen.

“Two long neck bottles of the finest alcoholic jorgan c-c-cider,” DJ held up the large, green bottles. “Thanks Nobody, you did good, ah, you d-did well. Hope it went on the old account.” He passed her a bottle.

They sat on the couch as he fiddled with some remote room controls while she pulled off her boots. Then he held up his open bottle, one eyebrow cocked, she mimed his movement and their bottles met, clinking loudly.

“Don’t be angry Nobody, I don’t like it. I w-w-wwwant to work it out.”

She drank.

The first mouthful was for Paige, may she rest in peace.

She drank.

The second and third for Finn and the Resistance. 

She drank.

The fourth, a long mouthful, for her having to put up with DJ. 

She drank.

The rest of the bottle was to help her forget the reasons for the previous mouthfuls. 

She drank. The bottle felt cold between her lips, the glass heavy, the crinkled foil packaging beaded with moisture out of its beat up, ice packed box. Her stupid hair fell messily in her stupid face. Her hair needed to be washed. She was starting to smell like the city, like DJ and his dumb ship. She giggled. Ship – shit, the words were funny. She smothered her laugh with a wet hand.

DJ watched her with his creep smirk played across his long face and ran a hand through his hair.

“You getting drunk Nobody? Yeah, you getting trashed.” He winked and sucked at his own bottle, then wiped at his face.

“I turned up the heat,” he informed her and finished his bottle before banging it on the holoprojector. It wasn’t as switched off as she had thought because a hologram of an X-Wing lit up, circling pointlessly. DJ took off his jacket, dropping it away messily, its brown fabric passing through the projection with a flicker. 

Then he started to undo his shirt, untucking ever so slowly as he went, his face watching the empty space slightly to her right. She pulled her furred hood up, so tight only the almost empty bottle of cider could fit through the gap, and put up her feet on the holoprojector table. Toes curled into the cold metal. 

DJ was shirtless now, why the fuck was he shirtless? The heat? The heat he could control? Creep, creep, creep. Through her reduced view she noticed he had a chest tattoo, it was blue and amateur, drawn between his nipples like a moon between stars and so blurred she couldn't make it out, even though it was large. Probably done in a prison cell, or in an alleyway by a blind monkey. 

“C’mon Nobody.” He cocked his head to the side. “You don’t know what you do to me. Your-your eyes. Don't make me beg.”

She finished her drink, tipping to suck up the dregs, and held the bottle between them.

“Touch me and I'll smash this into your skull.”

Head cocked to the side DJ extended a single finger and touched one of her tightly flexed toes with a noise that sounded like a ‘boop’.

When she didn't react he grasped her ankle, when again she stayed still he moved closer, slid his hand a little higher.

The sweet alcohol swirled haphazardly in her mind. It felt glorious. The world slipped away to just a few key emotions. Hate and lust. Similar. She tilted her head feeling the way the odd glove on one of his palms slid, skimming her calf in ever firming slides. Before he flipped it off and leaned closer, thumb circling the sides of her knee.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he whined. “You should just let go Nobody. I saved you, you ah, such a good girl. You know I love you, let me, let me make you feel good. Let me.” DJ reached for the empty bottle and slowly pulled it out of her hand to drop it on the carpet. She eyed his chest, the riot of lines the colour of fresh bruises. Her mind unresponsive, room rocking, tilting like a ship in a storm. 

Everyone she loved was dead.

Nobody smiled. Lips framed by the thick fur in her hood, a hiding spot so lush her eyes only saw him from his neck down. The perfect faceless crime.

“Oh fuck, you really are going to let me?” He unzipped her jacket, she was born again, but hungry and yielding. She could see his mind working, he wanted to make sure she stayed very, very compliant. “You want another d-d-drink?” He offered.

“You have more?”

“S-s-sssure, all sorts on this ship. I mean, ah, if it hasn't been stolen by the scrubbers.” He pulled her up and tugged off her jacket, tossing it with his own. Then walked over to a cupboard, ran a hand over the lockers and pulled out two bottles. “Gin or Corellian whiskey?”

Bottle. Nipple. Tattoo. Nipple. Bottle.

She stared mouth slightly ajar. He poured a drink, skulled half with a quite growl and took the still amply filled glass to her. She swallowed and grimaced.

“The whiskey, since we’re here and all. It’s good, ah yeah. Just a little more?” He suggested, as if it were a medicine, a magic tonic to make her his. She swallowed, eyes tearing with the strong, bitter taste.

“Enough,” he put the glass on the table, prizing it from her hand. The X-wing now had a glass intersecting it, warping the image. “You gotta be real friendly, but n-not vomiting. I want you real,” he sunk next to her, eyes up, inspecting the ceiling. “Nice.”

“You mean,” her voice sounded loud. “I have to be drunk enough to lower my inhibitions, but sober enough to regret it the next day.”

“Maybe you need more booze, you’re making sense. That’s your problem you make too much sense and none at all. Nobody. But I-I-I…”

He pulled her onto his lap and kissed her, she wrapped herself around him and his hands fell taunt on her thighs, pulling her flush against him. He deepened the kiss, and they clashed urgently, faces demanding touch, lips begging, tongues pressing. His body was surprisingly taunt, a little scarred and hot as fuck in her present mind.

“Oh fuck, you so t-t-t-t-trashed, you like it, you love me. Say it.”

“I love you,” she purred lying deftly. He pulled up the skirt on the red dress.

“Yeah, you do. You’re my Nobody. I'm going to f-f-fuck you, I'm going to fill you up. I'm going to make you scream. You said you want it this time, you said.”

His chatter was smothered by her mouth, but he mumbled through every breath he could take, repeating words like he was chanting a holy text. When she managed to pull off her dress he buried his face in her breasts. The touch of his rough beard against her nipple made her moan, it felt obscene, the harsh prickle of rough hairs scratching delicate skin. Her vocal approval pushed him to double his attention. DJ sucked at each nipple, eyes closed, just lips moving, just lewd slurping, wide tongue licking. He reminded her of a cat cleaning itself, but she knelt into his motion and stroked the back of his head. It felt amazing, she could admit that. He was good, really good. She buried her warning system and focused on his mouth, the feeling of wetness and a fluttering chest. His wanting. Both their desperation.

She felt his mouth twitch into a spasm and then he angrily pressed his face into her, trying to halt its intrusion. His muscles fluttered, eyelashes tightening to try and squeeze his unbidden tic to stillness. 

“It's okay,” she told him, brushing his cheek, and he pulled her legs further apart without comment. His hands curled around her thighs and a finger touched her slit. Hands stretching her wide.

She wanted sex, anybody sex. He wanted her. He was the most in zealous suitor she'd ever had, and she had not had many. Life had always been about staying one step ahead, which meant staying small and unnoticed. It felt, she tried to measure her rioting emotions, not good to be so obsessed over. Not good, but something. It felt something even if she was a nobody.

His finger pressed and breached and she pushed back, allowing him to touch inside. This time it felt good, one, two fingers and she was a mess of slick fluid and heat.

“Oh fuck,” he moaned into her nipple. “You’re a slut Nobody, you w-want me. You love me.”

“I love you.”

He undid his pants and pulled them down, his erection sprung free and she lifted herself up and guided it inside. She thrust herself over him and shook as she wobbly lifted herself onto her knees. 

To her surprise he stopped moving as soon as cock entered her cunt, just held himself inside, head rolled back on the couch.

She leaned forward.

“No, don't move,” he said breathlessly, eyes squeezed shut. “Too close.” His hands moved to her breasts and his thumbs brushed over her erect nipples. 

“Please?” She lifted herself up.

“Now you begging,” DJ chuckled. “I can't move Nobody, you got me s-s-sstrung up, overworked.”

She started to fuck him herself, using her hips to slide up and down.

“Say it again,” he asked.

“I love you.”

He started thrusting, he pulled at her hips, his dick hit her cervix and kept slamming. She couldn't breathe and he couldn't stop. With another push he spilled, spurting, filling. He came inside and pushed a little more.

“Sass, sss,” he choked his static with her skin, arms wrapped loosely around her waist. They embraced through his afterglow. His passion quick. How long since his last time she wondered? A year? A week? She touched his tattoo. It still didn't make much sense, her finger drew and redrew. He pulled out of inside her and started kissing her again, pulling her hands off off her sketching, wrapping them around him.

“You want to go again, I can take some spice. Found some.”

She thought, lips smiling against his neck. She did want more. Seemed a waste to ruin the one time she got drunk and had sex with someone so, so – creepy DJ. She hadn't even got to orgasm. But spice was a drug she knew about. Too many people she had seen drop taking spice. They could rage, kiss or accidentally throw themselves into a pit believing they’d read the mind of the Maker. You never knew. 

He blinked down at her, one eyebrow cocked and with a smile like he just won a double jackpot.

She stroked his hair and he lent into her palm, the wrinkles in his forehead smushed smooth. Moving off his lap she slid next to him, her other hand moved to the back of his head so he had to lean over her. Applying firm pressure she squirmed her hips while pulling his face down towards her now reclining torso. DJ quickly realized what she was suggesting.

“But I just...” he swallowed.

“You said, you would make me scream.” Swirl, swirl, swirl went the room as she pulled his head lower.

He actually turned a darker shade of red, then crouching sank his face between her thighs. At first he was almost gentle, but she knew he was just avoiding having to eat his own cum, bad boy she felt it oozing out. She pulled his hair, hard, and felt him deepen his efforts with a grunt.

“That's right, eat,” she moaned, “like that. Hitting a rhythm. He pushed on her leg, widening her and she slid down awkwardly on the curve of the narrow couch, laughing before returning to moaning as he slid fingers back inside.

DJ started talking into her, he couldn't help himself. It turned into a throaty hum and a tone that sounded like it alternated between berating and pleading. Through the haze of liquor and lust she realized he was telling her vagina how much she was enjoying his effort. The word ‘you’ being the clearest between his urgent nipping and swiping. His head buried between her thighs, she ran her fingers across his shoulders.

Something was hitting the right nerves, cause she slipped into the river of no return, the way he spoke, stuttering into her clitoris. 

“I'm going to,” she warned and pushed his face up. Instead she used her own fingers on her pink hub to finish. His fingers still dug inside as she came, shuddering, clenching. He watched in awe. A pool of fluid pooled onto the blue, green fabric of the couch.

“Aw yeah, fuck Nobody, you gotta do that with my dick inside. You’re so filthy, my filthy. He licked his fingers and smelt them then pressed them to her mouth. She opened obediently and cleaned them. Fingers slipped dipping in and out of her mouth.

“Let me take the spice.”

“Let's just wait, sleep a little, talk.”

He scoffed. “Gotta do it while I can, you get sober, you not ssssso nice. Believe me I'm the guy girls only f-f-f-fuck when their trashed, or if I won big. In the morning psst,” DJ waved frowning. 

“Well, you don't have to worry, I'm stuck here.”

“Still gone, in the morning you'll be hating me more. Looking at me like some shit you found on the bottom of your boot. You think I don't know how much I disgust you? That you’re just here because you got no-no other options. I'm just Nobody’s nobody.”

She removed his hand. “Don't act like I'm the bad guy here.”

He wiped his face on her stomach, the stubble scraped stickily. Then he drew her close, wrapped his arms around her, pulling, sliding her towards him as he stayed kneeling.

“I'd carry you to the bedroom, but I don't think I can. I mean,” he realized it didn't sound good and kissed up to her face. “I'm not as y-y-y-y-fit as I could be.”

She wrapped her arms around him and joined him on the floor. They lay together, she let the world spin into her drunken haze and kissed his skin, every hairy inch. He lay smirking, if she kissed any part that especially hit an erotic nerve he stuttered, hissing ever so quietly. 

Until she flopped, he stroked her back slowly his eyes closed. She wriggled closer for warmth, then got up and walked naked down the spiral stairs, she pulled a blanket off the bed, a soft furry one. Tucked a pillow under her arm and returned to him.

“Good girl,” he said and they embraced again. His arm heavy over her waist.

The X-wing hologram, spinning jaggedly through glass and clothing, their only light.


	2. Chapter 2

He was right.

When she woke she had regret. She lay bleary eyed, staring at him sleeping. He looked old. Damaged. A man that got too old without a family, without a home, without anything, any tangible object to show for a whole lifetime. Not that she had anything to show either, what family she knew had all gone. The Resistance destroyed and home had been a bunk on a ship, or on a military base. Somewhere she had pictures and clothes and two books about mechanics and several comm devices. She had a hat, it was white, a sun hat. She had got a dirty mark on it and Paige had put a fake rose over the grey smudge. Where was the hat? Somewhere lost in the galaxy. Where was Paige? Somewhere dead, and she was here getting drunk, and fucking a man who did terrible things, and was old enough to be her father. Because it felt good.

She wanted to punch him in his stupid tattoo.

He twitched in his sleep and somewhere something banged against the hull. Sounded like an access hatch closing, or the ship getting knocked. DJ lay on his back and opened his eyes and looked at her, really looked. 

Groaning he coughed and rubbed his eyes. “Tell me I didn't ah, sleep on the floor,” he noted her expression and he sighed; glanced to the space above her hair. “What's wrong with you? Fuck you, think we all look gorgeous in the morning? Sleep on the fucking f-f-f-ffffloor.”

***  
There was some awkward time spent after that. A day spent sitting on the floor of the galley and pretending to work. Back to avoiding. To ignoring. She didn’t care that DJ glanced over her with scorn for her fickleness, or that he tried to engage her in conversation and worst of all that he seemed used to being rejected. It was all so much water off his back. 

How many people had let him down? 

Everything she touched felt like chains in her hands. The red dress sat alone inside a drawer.

After a lonely lunch one day she slipped into the shower. Nothing came out when she waved at the water sensor.

She dressed and went upstairs to inspect the resource display. There was no water left in the holding tank. Shoulders drooped. The ship only had a sonic clothes cleaner, not a shower sized one. The makers of the Libertine had always assumed the owners would be wealthy enough to afford real water. There was no way she was getting clean without an order of fresh H2O.

DJ whistled from where he lounged in the pilot’s chair. He was listening to jarring music, like he couldn’t sit silently for one second in his life.

Huffing she pushed back her hair, it fell back stringy and black.

“Gotta a problem there Nobody?”

“There’s no water in the tank. You need to order more. Please.”

He sighed dramatically. “Y-y-y-you know I would, because you asked so nicely, but I need all the credit I have to pay for the scrub. Unless…” he had his card pack in his hand. In an impressive show of skill he used both hands to pluck small groups of cards and rotate them through his fingers. “Unless, you do a favor for me. Just try a few games of poker at this place I know,” he bunched the deck and tapped it against her forehead. “I can’t play there anymore, so I need someone else.”

“I hardly know how to gamble, there’s no chance of me winning.”

“You don’t have to win, you just have to play. That’s it, just sit and play, and nothing, ah, um, not legal. I can give you some lessons. You want to-to-to get clean don’t you?”

She rolled her eyes. “How will you get the water if you don’t have the credit, and I don’t win?”

DJ shrugged. “You’re too smart Nobody, but yeah, too smart. Yes or no. Hot shower? Or sticking your head under the sump hose outside, washing in front of the whole hanger, y-y-y-y-you choose.”

The empty tank's water drop display flashed on the ships panel as if mocking her. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Fine.”

The card lessons began immediately. They sat on the couch and she primly held up the dog eared cards DJ dealt her as he explained the rules in a very round-about way. He emphasized the importance of knowing when to take chances and when to fold, to memorize the cards played, and work out what was still in the dealer’s hand. Eyes roved upwards as he talked in a low monotone, he didn’t even pick up his cards, just left them lying on top of the switched off holochrome after the smallest of glances.

They played a four rounds and she lost each one.

“So you wanna know your t-t-t-tell?” DJ asked. “It’s really hot. You ah, you lick your lips when you think you have a good card.”

As he spoke her tongue was creeping out. She bit her bottom lip instead and he laughed at her. A genuine laugh, it was kind of high pitched compared to his normal, deeper tone. “I’ll tell you mine,” he confided, he crooked a finger indicating he wanted her to move closer. She leaned forward and he waggled his finger a little more. Now she was so close she could see his face close up, his own lips slightly parted, she could see the fine puckered skin in the scar on his cheek. “It’s… that I-I can see your cards,” he glanced down at her hand and she snapped them to her chest. He followed with a kiss, grabbing a shoulder to hold her in range.

“No!” She pulled away. “That’s being a creep again.”

“Hey, I ate you out right h-h-here,” DJ motioned to the couch. “Don’t get all prissy on me now.”

She drew herself up and calmly wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Why did he have to bring that up? There was already a stain on the blue-green fabric of the seat she couldn’t clean off. A constant reminder of her weakness.

He dealt her another card without her asking and she stayed still. He dealt another. “Good girl, you’re learning. Just keep your eyes on the dealer, if you have to look somewhere. Don’t pick up your cards too, other players will look at them. Just check and m-mmemoriii...” One of his tics started, he placed a hand over his twitching cheek and exhaled a little. 

She watched him, he pinched his bottom lip.

“Just play ,” he told her as he looked down. 

***  


It was true DJ wasn’t allowed to play. They had almost not even been allowed into the flashy, yet aging Corellian Casino. A bribe had to be handed over and, even then, a watchful security droid was the result. The slicer’s own personal baby sitter.

He stood far enough away from the tables that she couldn't hear him, but he propped himself against the bar with a glowing blue drink. Pushing his hat forward she saw him talking to the bar woman, he was smiling at her his eyes crinkled into deep lines. DJ looked the most relaxed she had ever seen him, even his movement seemed subdue, the open hand gestures and one leg on the bar's kick rail. He couldn't help the way he looked up or down depending on if he was waiting for a stammer to pass, or if he was thinking, but otherwise he lounged. Somewhere he had picked up a toothpick. It stuck out of his mouth and was occasionally jostled. The droid assigned to watch him stood close by, intimidating, yet DJ seemed nonchalant about the intrusion.

Rose had put on the red dress for her visit. Tried to put up most of her hair. Felt like an idiot.

She pulled herself back to the table as she was dealt her first hand. Peeling back the corners she looked at the cards, she memorized them, and left them as they sat. Glancing at her opponents faces, each player either met her gaze or didn't. She wondered if they could sense her tight buttoned unease. He had said, ‘the one who seemed the most out of their depth was the one to watch’. Did this mean they all watched her? As taught she rested her eyes on the dealer. Although one other human player kept wanting to catch her out. He did everything DJ had told her not to do and yet won twice in a row. On the third round, surprising even herself, she won. Just as explained Rose didn’t show her pleasure, except to look over at DJ. He shook his head at her and returned to the conversation at the bar.

A casino droid rolled behind her and she saw the sudden green glow of a body scan beam filter over her. The other players watched, pausing play. Nobody else got scanned.

“They always do that to new players,” the male human at the table told her. “Just a precaution I suppose.”

In the next three hands she slowly lost all her credits and pulled out with enough to catch a transport back to their ship.

***

DJ had made her describe the game when she went to him holding the last of their credit. He wanted to know each card and the order they had appeared. He got frustrated when she couldn’t remember.

“No good, you gotta re-re-remember, otherwise pffffft,” he made a brushing motion. “Might as well just g-give them everything up front.”

“I won the third hand. I should have stopped there,” she said and lent her back on the bar top. Then her face peeked up. “I did win at a professional level.”

“Please Nobody, he, I, ah, he, that guy, l-l-let you win that hand.”

“I won, no one let me win.”

“Did you see your tits when you bent over to pick up cards? You’re like ripe fruit waiting for someone to peel you open. He wanted to f-f-fffuck y-y-you, he let you win. I know. I would have let you win if I thought I had a chance to bounce you on my cock. Yes, you should have stopped after that, would have really screwed with him. Or better, charged him five times what you won that round for a, ah, for a blow job. If I had doe-eyed f-fface like yours I wouldn't waste my time playing cards.”

She felt like slapping his loud mouth, no, beating the shit out of DJ would give her more pleasure. She glared, arms folded. The little pride she had hoarded evaporated. 

“Don't get angry at the messenger, anyway you did good. You're my good girl Nobody. You get your hot shower,” he pulled out his datapad and started tapping.

Rose continued to scowl at him, arms tight, wrapped around her red dress covering the exposed skin. She had lost in the end, but won that hand fairly. The winning gambler eyed her from across the sparsely crowded room, away from the table the man looked quite okay. A little short, but sharp dressed, he had his own protection which screamed wealth, cheap as it probably was in this city. What if she just walked over there and asked if he had let her win? No harm done and she’d find out the truth.

Looking up from his device DJ’s gaze followed to where she was looking.

“Nah, nah, nah, nah,” he stuttered and stepped out to block her view, standing between her and the obviously curious gambler. The datapad slid back into his pocket.

“I thought you said I could get more for a blow job?” She spat out the words.

DJ slung an arm ever so casually around her shoulder, almost a headlock he tangled her so close. “Sixty-forty,” he purred. “I can get you much better Johns than that low baller Nobody.”

“Stop!” She pushed his arm off, he moved it to her backside and patted firmly, jeweled rings splayed across her ass. 

“D-d-d-d-don't joke about it then, if you can't handle the heat, don’t play… Partner.” 

She noticed DJ looked at the successful gambler as he nudged her to leave, chin up, eyebrow raised. As if to point out that he may have won the credits, but he had the girl. For some unknown reason she slipped her hand into the slicer's empty fist, causing him to almost jump out of his skin, but deftly covered his surprise by clearing his throat.

“Hungry?” He asked. “Take a while for the tanks to fill. Just put the order in.” 

They dodged the patrols, pick pockets and beggars, heads covered, eyes alert.

She slowed at an open Banh shop, delicious smells of cooking meat wafted through the propped open door. A pair of humans, with a wider set face shape much like hers, were serving inside. She hadn't had real Banh since… forever. DJ shrugged and nodded at her choice and they went in and were seated near the kitchen. 

DJ pushed the menu around without picking it up. “Order for me,” he dismissively told her and settled back in his chair while watching the door.

The place was gold and red, dim round lights and had moving art of healthy animals in far off forests. Mostly birds and fish. It made her think a little of family, it was like an extreme version of her youth, a stereotype of a far off, bright culture. The young, male server spoke a little to her in the language of her mother, but she answered halting. 

“I don't know, sorry. Only a little,” Rose hoped she said, and the server nodded and bowed as she pointed past the foreign writing she couldn’t read at the menu pictures.

DJ ran his hand over his face, she could tell he didn't like to be excluded. That was him all over, on one hand he stayed out of everything, not taking sides, remaining hidden and fluid. Living free. On the other, he craved the notoriety and attention. People to preach his ‘we’re all the bad guys’ beliefs to, and he wanted partnership, whether he admitted it or not. DJ wanted Nobody. She felt like a creation he had decided he wanted, that he shaped like a sculpture. A new dress, a fuck and a pack of cards. 

The way he made her repeat she loved him, even when he knew it was an act, he must know. Was it just another opportunistic chain being pulled? A means to an end, just play the game and receive payment.

“How come you never got married?”

“Who's to say I-I didn't?”

She shrugged.

“You don't know me Nobody. This you? He motioned suddenly to the room. One of the servers ducked slightly, shifting at the sudden flung arm. Glasses rattled.

“A little.”

“Yeah, you look like them, just saying, a fact. A little advise, don't tell people your history, you'll get further if you make them guess.” He settled back. “I don't tell anyone anything. It's not personal.”

“Gee, how did I ever get this far without your pearls of insane wisdom?” 

He leaned back and looked down at her.

“I don't need your smart m-m-mmmouth. I could pull you out of here so fast your ass wouldn't hit the door on the way out.”

She glared. “I could stab you with one of these sticks so hard it'd stop your heart.”

“Let's just keep things light, ah, Nobody. Sometimes you get so…” He looked down without finishing. 

They ate in strange silence. 

***

DJ watched her.

She turned to the wall and continued.

“View’s good both sides,” he mumbled.

“If you just wait till I wash my hair you can get in - next.”

She looked over her shoulder to see him taking off his jacket. He stripped and stepped into the shower. Sighing, she felt pushed into the corner as he hogged the streaming hot water. DJ took the soap and started washing her hair, his hands moving, separating, pressing firm. Then he pulled her head gently under the water spray, combing with fingers.

Why was he being so nice? She turned. That was why, the grin. “Do a man a favor,” he kissed her.

“Too expensive for you,” she pushed his shoulder. His next kiss slipped into air.

“I'm rich, I bought you this water.”

Because I played cards.

“And lost. You think I got this water for a lost amateur, by the way, card game? I sold some excess cargo and made money, got you all hot and warm and clean.” His hands cupped her breasts, DJ started kissing her again. “You smell nice.”

“What did you sell?”

“The ah, I sold the spice, most of it.”

“You were selling drugs while I played cards?”

“Sure did Nobody, you're a good cover. They w-watch me, watching you, but they don’t listen to me. They don’t even really give a fuck, but they have to pretend right? But, don't worry it was more a one off thing. I-I don't usually sell, think about the little kiddies and all that. Might as well though, filled our tanks, paid for a fuel up. Gets it outta our hold. And I gotta get you back to those rebels.”

“I don't want to,” she murmured. “It's wrong.”

“It's all perspective,” he kissed into her wet hair, and the water poured between them. She could see it streaming through his dark pubic hair, down his lewd semi-erection and running off his balls.

“C’mon,” he urged. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever touched.”

She let him kiss her mouth. He talked into her, his voice, his tongue, the water all ran into his mouth. Overflowing.

“Fuck Nobody, let me put my dick in your face.”

She shook her head slowly.

“I love you,” he pressed pleading. He twitched and hid his tic while making an annoyed growl.

She kissed his shoulder. “I love you.” 

“Do it, you-you-you ah, can't tease me and just stop.”

Reaching out of the shower she grabbed a towel, and he looked at her sourly, like someone had just stolen his last credit, but he turned back to the shower and his eyes moved to study the finely tiled floor. She folded the towel up and took it into the shower, dropping it on the ground.

A slow grin.

“Oh Fuck, such a good girl.” She knelt and grabbed his dick, she palmed it a few times, it was warm, pink, his foreskin moved back as she moved her hand. Mesmerizing. Lips touched the tip experimentally. 

He made a gasping noise and put both hands around her head. He pushed a little and she felt it slide across her tongue, a taste of salt. Blow jobs were not her favorite, honestly she didn’t have a lot of experience, but he was so fucking needy. She took her time, licked the length, then moved to his tightly drawn balls letting the water bubble into her parted mouth and spitting it out again as she moved. She squeezed her breasts together with her palms and rubbed a nipple against his leg.

She looked up into his face as he watched intently. He looked red from the heat.

“You okay?” She asked.

He nodded.

She took him back in her mouth and his hands tightened. Hair tangled between his fingers. She let him guide what he wanted and he wanted lots. He thrust quicker and quicker, she had to put her hand wrapped around the base to stop him pushing too far and choking her. With this touch, he seemed to focus, he needed the support. He stopped his frantic movements and instead she bobbed, attentive. He found his voice again, it sputtered into a repeating yeah.

He yanked on her hair back so she popped off, his dick sashayed in front of her face and he held her off, mouth parted, hair taunt, bunched in his fist. Her hand still moved, sliding, wanking.

“I'm gunna cum, just stay like that.” He took over from her and increased the speed. His off-hand pulled at her hair, short jerks of pressure. He felt like the worlds roughest hairdresser. She stuck out her tongue and stroked herself. 

DJ managed to spurt across her face. The first wave, the sight of white stripe across spread across her lips and eyelashes jerked another jet into her mouth. He wiped the last strand against her still open bottom lip with a moan.

Her hair slipped through his fingers as he released his grip.

“I-I love you.”

“I love you.” The water felt uncomfortable now, she let it wash off her face and stood. He kissed her deeply, but she was already moving on, and she stepped past him to dry herself.

In bed she felt heavy, her skin dry from all the oils being washed off. She left her hair wet and spread it across the pillow. As her eyes closed to sleep DJ slunk in and joined her, pulling her into the curve of his body. He smelt clean and he'd shaved. He rubbed his smooth cheek against her shoulder wanting her to notice the effort.

Lips twitched against her.

***

She only avoided him half the time now. The remaining time, watching the mechanics work, waiting for parts, went by like a dream. She didn’t even have anything to say when the two weeks became three.

It was easier just to take one hour at a time. One weird impersonal question at a time, and accept somewhat wakeful nights spent listening to him snore. At least it stopped her from dreaming of the Resistance.

Getting out of the port in Corellia had not gone smooth. He wouldn't let her get involved though. He swore and argued and told them he'd never come back, that he would tell everyone that the scrubbers cheated, that the government was corrupt and the transportation union fucked. But just when it looked like they would never get out of the atmosphere ever he brokered a deal and they exited. The ship left using its new serial number and call name, the voyage went on its record along with a hundred years of made up flights. This record would be used to get to the next destination; then the next until the ship became its new identity. DJ himself had worked on the official history logs, he had spent hours sweeping away the past.

Rose read over the ships new record. She stopped at the new name and read it, lips forming the words silently. DJ had named the vessel:

Nobody’s Perfect

He didn’t look at her, just turned up the music. The fucking shit music she hated.

***

DJ had told her they would next go to Mandalore, a planet in the outer rim and one nearer D’Qar. If she wanted to get off there she would be safe. The First Order knew better than to press too hard on Mandalore.

He had told her of their destination and left it at that. Only adding he didn’t want to waste too much hyper fuel in travelling.

During their space flight they played cards, watched holovids or just talked – sometimes he talked through the holovids. A steady stream of plot spoilers and suggested edits. There was one thing the slicer never mentioned. 

DJ never talked about himself. Never. Although he’s ask her about her past. In the most convoluted way possible. What was the time of her first kiss? How much did her sister like snow? Any answers bordering on what he felt was too personal, and he repeated his warning to not give too much of her past away.

The days stretched into a week. Now she had been gone over a month. The traitor to the Rebels, a true Nobody, now a criminal slicer’s companion, or had she always been a criminal? In the eyes of the First Order, yes. Oh Maker, she had been listening to DJ too long.

The past, the Resistance seemed to fade to just a shadow. One that haunted her at times she lay in bed, now alone since they had to share piloting of the ship. Other times when she’d see her pendant reflected in the clear plastic of one of the ship’s screens she would look away ashamed.

***  
“I think it would be more of an issue, to read each other’s minds. No one is thinking beautiful thoughts all the time. I mean, sometimes we are thinking about terrible things, like how much you hate someone's hair, or the way they chew, or if you're bored or just in pain. Confused, angry, tired.” 

“I can r-read you like a book Nobody, d-d-don't need any Force for that.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he had his cards again. They shuffled in his palms, rings flashing. “Pick a card.” He told her and fanned them out; the backs showed a bright, red and white a pattern of entwined flowers. Behind them his face tilted to the side, eyes watching the screen as if only half invested in his demonstration.

She took a card and he put a hand over hers, stopping her from looking at it. His fingers stroked her hand and he plucked the card from her grasp while raising an eyebrow. Inhaling with the now familiar stutter he whistled at her choice.

He put the rest of the pack down and tapped the sides to ensure they were all flush.

“You, ah, you feel conflicted, am I right?” She nodded, nothing new though. “And you want to finish what you started with, you know, Big F and the Resistance, finish what your sister d-d-died for and all. But,” he tapped the card still hidden on his chin. “You also kind of want to start over, nah, not start over so much, but experiment.” 

She looked at the card back, the wavering flowers as it moved.

“You like being t-t-t-t-told what to do. It takes away your ah, responsibility I could say, you don't like to b-be the one making the decisions. Someone, someone when you were young, made a fuss when you did good. Before that you, ah, felt like nothing,” he looked at her and she felt like she was just another string of slicer code being unraveled. “But that praise. That, ah, attention. It made you want to do it again and again. Get that good girl high.” 

She opened her mouth to tell him he was wrong, but he held the card up to shush her. “It doesn't mean you always s-s-subservient. You had enough of forced slavery, injustice. It's a fine line Nobody. I understand. And right now. Now. You want me to change. To make the decision for you on what you do next, but you want me to choose what you think is right. I don't change. You hate that I won't.”

“I don't want you to change.”

“Never met a girl yet who hasn't tried.” 

“Maybe that means you should rethink your life choices.”

“Maybe,” he repeated and smiled, tight lipped, before letting his face fall into its regular tired pall. “I need to call a being about a job.” He stood. “Watch out for traffic Nobody. Don't turn over that card.” He pointed at the card she chose, it was face down on the panel resting safely against a row of buttons. There was no chance of it accidently sliding off.

She looked out the window into space as he left. Traffic… they hadn’t seen a ship for days. She tapped at the screen, he had allowed her access to some reading material, all about the ship. Reading carefully, she mouthed the names of the parts, she was good at remembering, good at picking up part numbers. The ship had been handcrafted, it was amazing the detail and the workmanship. Pity DJ had now given such a work of art such a dumb name.

Nobody frowned.

The card sat on the panel, it didn't matter which one it was. All that stuff he'd made up was just another scam, everyone liked to be told they do good work, who didn't? 

After a long while he returned and pulled his jacket tight around his legs before sitting. 

“D-d-did you look?”

“I've been reading.”

“I know you didn't look at the card.” DJ picked it up. Swiveled her chair with his foot so she faced him front on, his leg resting on the fine leather of her seat. “Because, I asked you not to and you are a good girl.”

“Oh please, she rolled her eyes. I didn't look, because it doesn't matter.”

“I'll put it back in the deck, unless, you know. It'd make m-m-mmme feel better if you asked nicely to see the card.”

“Then show me the card.”

“Nicer.”

She rubbed her face with her hand. The recycled air in transit was getting to her, making her feel a little strung out till her blood got used to breathing over and over the same wasted breath.

“Please show me?”

“Nobody, you are so smart, use that beautiful brain. Ask really nice. I so want to show you, but you have to ask.”

Lips felt dry, she transferred herself from her chair to his lap and wrapped her arms around him, he playfully kept the card from her line of sight. She picked up his hat and put it on her own head, then buried her lips in the side of his neck. Please show me the card. She whispered near his ear.

“I love you,” he said waving the card slightly.

“I love you, so much DJ.”

He made as if to turn the card and then didn't. Then did.

“Two of diamonds. Our old friend.”

“Why not hearts?”

He embraced her rubbing his chin against her brow, her dark hair falling on his lips. “Because diamonds are worth more than hearts. We all got hearts. Won't buy you anything though.”

She realized what his tattoo was. She touched the space on his chest where she knew the blue lines blurred. It was a crude anatomical picture of a heart. Very crude and old, she knew tattoos lost a lot of definition as they aged. Who had inspired such a work? A girl? A boy? A family? A war?

“If I keep telling you how good you are, I can make you stay.” He told her in a low voice. “I will take advantage, it's so easy. You're just burning up for a cause to live for, and someone to make it worth your while. Just letting you k-k-know.” 

“What about you? I can make you do what I want.”

“I know you can Nobody, but you just gotta ask me.”

***

He was a knife, he could be picked up by the handle or the blade, but he wanted her to grasp the handle. He angled himself even as she reached for the sharp edge. 

Twisted sideways on the bar stool, facing him, her finger reached across the smooth countertop and touched his ring, circling the pale orange gem with a fingertip. He in turn, absently placed his free hand on her thigh under the lip of the bar.

They had finally made it to Mandalore. To a city much wealthier than the one on Corellia. There was green spaces with spreading vegetation and tall, beautiful people, and yet here they were in some human bar. Worse, a strip club.

“What do you see?” He asked without turning around.

She described the drinking and, what could be called, the dining area. Lots of too green fernery, pressed plastic patterned walls, dim up-lighting and plenty of local odds and ends tacked to the walls haphazardly passing as art. 

Two waiters, no three, she corrected. One harassed looking drinks waitress in the dining area and a full house of diners, almost all of them human. Three droids sat at a table near the door being scowled at by what loosely could be called ‘living’ beings wanting the table. The metal men all held full drinks though and so would be tolerated, unless the bar wanted a robot picket line tomorrow night. A group of men stood waiting at high tables near the dancers area. The barely clothed dancers hovered at the edge of her view. Maybe five dancers, also serving drinks, sometimes one would wander to the food service area and was always welcomed and left with company.

“Anyone looking at us?”

“Looking at me,” she replied.

His hand spread across her leg. As if making sure the watcher, whoever they were, saw the movement. Although, she didn't think his touch was overly possessive, that wasn't his style. More a smooth signal, showing she was part of whatever brought him here. Maybe she was becoming another fragment of his no doubt carefully carved fake persona? Along with the false name and unknown history, now slicer, thief DJ came with the mystery girl.

“Drink,” he ordered and clinked his glass against hers.

She leaned her head against him. She was tired, her skin crawled, bones ached. More than anything she wanted bed and sleep. She felt cold even in the warmer atmosphere. Maybe she was getting a cold. More likely she was spacelagged.

He ducked his head out of the way of hers and drank, crunching a piece of ice between his teeth. A tic around his chin pressed against her hair as he tried to swallow. When it passed he said, “You wanna get a booth? I gotta meet someone.” 

“DJ why here? Whatever the deal it's not anything good here, at this time of night. Let’s go back to the ship and rest.” She so rarely used his name, she looked up hoping he sensed her exhaustion. He was looking elsewhere, a brief smile on his face as a bearded man approached. DJ shook her off and stood to clasp the man's shoulder in greeting.

“Who’s this?” The man asked gesturing to Rose. “You settling down old man?”

“She's ah, Nobody,” he answered and she scowled turning back to her drink. “Just a, ah, a dancer.” She rolled her eyes. She knew men liked all sorts, but who in their right mind would want her to grind in their face? She was not like the other medically enhanced dolls in clear, towering heels. She drank throwing back the sweet liquid in three gulps. Stood up and stalked over to the dancer’s area. The space clearly defined between eat and play by the floor changing from a soft carpet to an easy to clean polished concrete. The concrete being on the dancing side she noted. Long curtains like sweeping flags hung randomly between easy to wipe, plastic looking wing back chairs. Guards dressed in black, unseen earlier in her appraisal of the rooms, stood with vacant stares, obviously bored and some spaced out. Occasionally they moved closer to handsy patrons. Usually a stern look or a cleared throat being enough to stop any guests from breaking the rules.

Looking up she saw him talking animated, left hand sweeping to the man, they leaned back from the bar, moved to newly free table. She sat in a chair and waved at one of the dancers, a gorgeous blonde with blue lipstick and matching blue lit heels. 

She smiled up at the girl through her long black fringe. “He's paying ,”she pointed through a gap in the curtains towards DJ. The girl tottering off to get payment and she relaxed, scootching down in the seat, closing her eyes against the beat heavy music. She crossed her ankles, arms spread wide along the edge of the couch, mimicking the other patrons she had seen, waiting for the girl to return. She hoped she was interrupting some stupid plan, the sooner DJ finished whatever it was he planned or scammed the better. He had told her she could choose their destination, and that she could leave when the time came, but his excuses and laundry list of work to do kept growing. 

If nothing was left of the Resistance she still needed to get back to peace keeping, it was the plan she and Paige had made so long ago. Feeling ashamed of being sidetracked by a man with a silver tongue and a brain and a cock, she had decided to go back where it started. Hays Minor, and see if anyone there were working on freeing more of her people. There were always small pockets of rebels everywhere. She had been saved from the mines by one such organization. She would go back and continue.

Behind her the curtain moved, twitched aside and DJ came into view, arms crossed.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting a dance.”

“Dancers don't get dances from other d-d-d-dancers.”

“That's a mouthful, especially for you,” she winced after she said it. She had never teased him about his stutter before. “I just meant...”

“Don't worry about it, No-bo-dy,” he said his name for her clearly, enunciating the syllables overly loud. Left hand touched his hat, pushed it back. He nodded to the blue lipped dancer. “Give her whatever she wants, but he'll pay,” he pointed to the man who stood out of earshot. “He's going watch.” DJ leant in towards her, mouth close so only she could hear. Clear concise - “Have fun.”

Louder he spoke to the man drifting closer. “T-t-two girls, lucky, enjoy.” The man passed DJ a small item, an exchange almost missed, and the slicer wandered out of sight.

The dancer bobbed chirpily. “So what do you want?” 

“A drink,” Rose answered, but truly she wanted to say ‘nothing’. She wanted nothing from the girl, unless she had a mattress in her pocket and could let Rose sleep, but the doll pottered off obediently. 

A guard brought the man his own chair and placed it opposite, making sure to give the dancer plenty of space, he looked relaxed, as if this was an everyday event. 

“So, you friend of the slicer dancing girl?”

“You could say that.” She eyed him warily, something stood out.

“That Resistance?” She leaned forward suddenly, pointed to a mark on his shirt. A blue flare, subtle but clear if you knew what to look for. The man just moved his arm and covered the patch, saying nothing. A Resistance supporter here... with DJ, dealing with Mr. Live Free? He mustn't be.

“Sorry, just used to, you know, before I got stuck with him,” she nodded in DJ’s direction. “I was a soldier with them.” 

The man looked at her disbelief written all over his face.

A girl in a red dress, an obscene red dress, who was a supposed dancer with him, it was a bit of a stretch. It was a life time ago. She suddenly smiled. If she wanted to find out more she'd have to get the man to talk. He looked right now like he wanted to walk away. Nothing good would come from questions about rebels by strange women. The blue-lipped dancer returned and kneeled in front of Rose offering the drink in a submissive way. She finished it fast while the girl talked, a black tipped finger with extreme, pointed nails brushing her knee.

“No touching, anywhere my friend, but I can touch you, got it?” Rose nodded. “Just tell me what you want and if I do it, then I'll do it.” Another nod. 

“Just um, do ‘it’ then.” Rose spread her arms wide again, then moved to mimic the rest of the man in front of her, legs uncrossed, then opened, her skirt rode up to reveal her underwear to the man. At least she was wearing them.

The dancer started by running her hands up Rose’s legs.

“Usually I’m working on men who are wearing pants. Although I get all sorts. I like your boots. First order right?”

Rose groaned inwardly. “I got them somewhere, can’t remember. Anyway, I like your shoes better. Mine don't have lights in them.”

“Oh yeah, check it out, this is cool. The girl stood, towering over Rose, and put her shoe on the chair between her spread legs. The dancer tapped and the blue glow inside the thick sole changed to a black light. “I can check you for body fluids.”

Rose looked down, sure enough her inner thighs had a smear of glowing white. 

The dancer placed her tits in her face. “You've been having some fun. This your boyfriend?” A shoulder roll towards the man.

“I don't even know his name.”

“Kinky. Want me to take off my top?”

“Sure. Should I take off mine?” 

The dancer shook her head as she pulled down her dress top. “Sorry, not allowed.” As if on cue one of the guards wandered close by. 

They inspected each other. The dancing girl was beautiful, her assets were implants though, they sat perky, slightly higher up her chest. Her hair impossibly long and creased as if the blonde strands had been stamped into a stiff crimp.

The dancer began a repetitive performance of wiggling and grinding while talking about her interest in travel, her favorite colour was red, what a coincidence Rose was wearing red. She repeated questions about if Rose liked what she was doing. The way she talked, repeated a lot, confirmed everything two to three times and answered her own questions reminded her a lot of him. Did he get a lot of dances? Or did he work in a club at some time? Her eyes widened, had he been a dancer? He was so old, yet graceful, tall, and even with his stutter could keep a conversation ticking along. She caught a glimpse of one of the male dancers and transferred the image to what she imagined DJ may have looked like twenty years earlier. Had he once been tanned, hairless and wearing white angel wings? As inconceivable as that far off youth seemed it could explain some of his quirks. A crotch covered in diamantes was placed in her line of sight, as the girl brushed her g-string against Rose’s distracted nose. Had he done this? She shook the image out of her head.

Looking up from the hypnotic flashing of tiny plastic jewels, she saw him slink past and head to behind the curtain behind the man, who was still watching the dancer and herself intensely. 

DJ must be getting a dance. How like her to assume he had been a worker when most likely he was just a willing and repeated customer. Always so quick to believe people were more victims than just regular trash.

“Want more Hun? The girl asked.

She shook her head. “Maybe he does?” Rose indicated towards the watching man. So much for getting him to talk, she was not much of a interrogator.

To her surprise, and some discomfort, he replied he'd rather have her dance for him. The real dancer prickled, voice becoming higher. “She doesn't rent here, she can't take our customers.” 

She saw movement on the other side on the curtain, he was probably getting the hand stand girl. She smiled fakely at the frowning girl. “How about you take the money and have a rest?” 

The dancer clicked her heels to rainbow lights. “Fair enough, if I get the credits. You got ten minutes though. We need the chairs.” And with a huff the dancer wandered over to a passing guard to explain.

Rose went to the man and tried to remember what the dancer had done. Ten minutes seemed to stretch like an eternity. From the other side of the curtain she heard the familiar. ‘Yeah, you do...’ Fine. Fine. She had done worse. This was nothing, just a dance. 

“Honestly I haven't done this before,” she put on what was hopefully a seductive wide eyed pout, hoping it looked convincing. “I'm not really a dancer, DJ likes to play that I am, and it looks fun.”

She put her hands on his knees and ran them up his thigh squeezing her breasts together. She lowered the straps on her dress and with a shock of cold air her breasts bobbed into view. It was odd doing this without talking.

“I like your - earing...” She hadn't even looked at it except now so close. The man had a gem of some sort in one pierced nostril. “I like jewelry.” DJ’s flashy rings came into her mind, the orange one, the kyber crystal speckled monolith. She slowly relaxed her shoulders, being naked in a room of people felt odd. She looked around, but nobody seemed to be caring much what they did. 

She sat on his lap and touched the earring gently. “I used to work in a mine,” she paused, that was a not so sexy conversation, what was she going to follow up with? My whole family were slaves for the First Order? 

“But I er, really love to travel,” She didn't really want to take off the rest of her dress so knelt up and wiped a nipple across his cheek, avoiding the beard. She wondered if the no touching rule applied to her as the man ‘mmmmmed’ and pressed his face against her.

“Do you like that?” She prompted, knowing he did. 

“Yeah. Can I ask you a question?”

“Oh yeah,” she said overly loud.

“Tell the truth cutie what are you doing with your old friend?” 

"DJ? He's, he...” she thought about the way DJ tried to please her, in a round-about way, if it was something he wanted, but then she also thought about all the other times he'd been a complete opportunistic asshole. What was she doing with him? Really? She had been given a million chances to walk away. “He's a smart guy,” she shrugged lamely.

The man seemed uninterested in any more conversation he just watched her squirm. She wondered if the symbol on his arm really meant anything or if it was just a way of gaining a foothold with any faction. A Resistance symbol on one arm, probably First Order on the other and Crimson Dawn somewhere between.

The guard edged closer and advised them that their time was up.

She sat on the man’s lap, feeling his tension return as she slid her top back on. Overall the experience han been a disappointment. She smiled at the man. A ‘well, that was fun, hope we never see each other again’ smile.

“You were very good,” he told her and cheekily ran his hands along her sides.

“I was?”

“Yes, I enjoyed it. Thank you.”

She warmed, the smile became more genuine, standing she helped him up. The blue-lipped dancer led another being to the chair, with a flip of her hair extension as if to say, ‘step away amateur’.

Behind the curtains, back in the bar she saw DJ nursing a drink close to his chest in his right hand, talking to the table of droids. He sourly glanced in their direction. A coldness in his eyes freezing her out.

“You were right,” the man quipped. “He is smart, but sometimes too smart for his own good. There is more to the universe than credits and more credits. A warning, DJ should stop while he's ahead maybe settle down. And he was right about you. Tell him from me that we'll get back to him.”

She wondered what DJ had told the bearded man about her. Stuck up asshole, hadn’t even left a tip.

She slowly made her way to where DJ was doing business. He turned away at her timid touch.

He waved his ringed hand in her direction, like she was an insect that had flown too close. “I gotta do something, why don't you go back to the ship.”

“By yourself? With a group of droids? Isn't that dangerous?”

“Nobody, I spent my whole life by myself, most of it anyway. Don't think I need you for anything. Fine before, fine after.” DJ pressed a credit chip into her hand. “Go-go-go-go back to ship, or don’t. Maybe you ah, want to dance with some more people?”

Her fingers curled around the chip. She nodded, calm, collected. The droids watched on lifelessly. This was what she wanted, to go to bed, sleep. She went into the street, hurriedly pulling her jacket tight, the fur in the hood, flush against her face. It reminded her of growing up on Hays Minor, always covered, rugged up against the ice. Lately she'd been too naked, too exposed. Tits out for strangers or suggesting blow jobs for gamblers. That wasn't her.

There were plenty of transports for hire but instead Rose decided to walk up the street to clear her head. The chip she held tight in her hand, it would do her no good to lose her only resource. Stopping in front of a lit up shop window she gathered herself together, he was suck a creep. Just a creep. She was nobody to him. Nobody. It was an insult really, right? 

The display was a riot of bright colours, pink, orange turquoise, red and gold. Strands of fabric flowers mingled with tiny lights and in the middle a holochrone of far off ship, a yacht liner cruising above a blue ocean.

Rose put her hand against the glass. Breathe fogging the yacht from view. Her hand found her necklace chain and she pulled it out to stroke the tear shaped amulet.

“Going on holiday?”

She refocused on DJ’s somewhat derelict, space cowboy like reflection in the glass, but didn't turn around.

“Maybe I could work on a ship like that. They must need maintenance workers, lots of them.” She stood pausing. “I thought he was from the Resistance, but... he was just some guy wasn’t he?”

“L-l-l-lllisten Nobody, I gave you the wrong chip. Yours is empty.” He passed a second chip. “That man, he was Resistance. I know. You think the only time Rebels go to bars is because they have to talk to dirty scum like us, like me? They like drinks and ah, big ole tits, when they aren't saving the universe. Same, same but different.” 

“You're so predictable, like a broken recording, repeating the same rhetoric over and over. Poor you, so original from the rest of us sheep. Don't join, nobody cares.”

DJ sighed, overly dramatic and loud. He took the pendant out of hand and held it gently. 

“That's the problem, you care. It eats you up inside that I don't want to be the g-g-g-g-good guy. That I can’t be,” he sighed. “Tell the truth I thought you would plan to meet up with him. Go back to your old Rebellion and kill a few more soldiers. I ah, I thought I’d have to come out here and shoot him in the face.”

She laughed a short, false sound.

He drew her away from the window. “I can't leave you alone Nobody, someone will steal your stuff standing still looking lost. Even on this goody-goody planet. You might as well paint a target on your back. Even b-b-b-better,” he pointed to a neon guest house sign nearby. “Let's get a room, I can make sure your safe, then go finish my job.”

He took her hand using his right. Fingers tightened protectively, interlaced together.

“In the morning I'll take you somewhere really nice.”

“If you're not in jail.”

“If I'm not in jail. Not a big job, just fell into my lap, its low stakes, r-r-reprogramming some bots so they can get out of their situations. Can't do anything ah, big with you around. I can get me out of anything quick, but you.” He shook his head. “You-you-you didn't even run off when I gave you the credit chip. You don't even try to get back to your base when a fellow peace keeper rubs his face on your pretty boobies. Perfect opportunity, take the credit, get back to preaching. Find Big F and save us all.”

“Finn died.”

“Oh no, Nobody, don't you read the news feed? For a man with a billion credit bounty he must be alive somewhere.” 

Her hand tightened. 

They got to the guest house and DJ paid for two nights. The room was beautiful in grey and pale pink and brilliant white.

She pulled off her boots and wriggled her toes. One sock had developed a hole in the heel. It reminded her of the first time she had seen DJ in the Canto Bight jail cell. His socks had been more holes than fabric. He kissed her skin. “You smell like stripper perfume and death sticks.”

“So do you.”

He sat on the bed and pulled her into his lap. “Nobody you're so-so-so perfect, with your hair and eyes and body and fucking cute as smile. Why did you have to be so...” he kissed her mouth hungrily, she felt the flutter of a tic, twitching in his lips, “perfect.” He touched her cheek, just his thumb. “Why’d you look at me?” 

“Don’t go out again,” she asked. 

“Eh,” he mumbled. “Don’t has to go Nobody, but,” he paused, “c-c-c-can I tell you something?”

“You never stop.”

“Yeah, I guess I, do I, when I was young...” he trailed off.

“What?”

“Nah, it's not true anyway. Sometimes I forget which ones are real. We all have these, like stories you tell yourself. Maybe, yeah.” He touched her stomach, his hand gentle and warm, fingers tickled against the skin in the cut outs of the red dress. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

“You know, you're the only one who has ever, ever said it back.” He stood, made to move on, to go back to the job he’d planned. Then stepped forward, placed his hands on her shoulders as if he was chained to her. As if he couldn’t leave her to go out into the dark. “Do-do they, ah, do they look after you Nobody? The Resis-s-stance?”

“Yes.”

“Not like me.”

“No, not the same.”

They kissed. The emotion flowed into her, like she had been set on fire. He pulled her towards him, it reminded her of the time hiding from stormtroopers, the way he pressed her against the wall. They kissed for a long time.

“Saved the universe yet? I m-m-m-m-mean the cause, the Rebels?” He asked when they finally drew apart, lips pink and flushed.

“Nearly, they have this girl hear. She has a sword that lights up.”

He put his arm around her and they walked up to the door. Nobody, the girl in red, freedom fighter with hair in her eyes, leant against an old, scarred slicer. He swaggered, staring above her head. He still wore his hat: Don’t Join. His lips pursed into the familiar look of a low, silent whistle. 

“You still l-love me Nobody? Even if…”

“I love you DJ.”

***

He’d left the credit chips. 

Months later Rose found later that the empty one had hidden information about the First Order. Important stuff. War changing. But she didn’t care. Commander Dameron loved it though. Kept talking like Rose Tico was some hero – just like her big sister. Like, Rose knew she had been sneaking out the plans, the codes, the messages all along.

He’d left his ring. 

The amber gemmed one, it had been left in her jacket pocket. Rose wore the ring, along with her teardrop pendant, safe around her neck. Sometimes it left an oval impression on her skin if she pressed against it. When she looked closely she saw tiny insects were trapped beneath the jewel’s hard surface.

Rose missed DJ. 

Abandoned in a Mandalorian guest house, left to find her own way and decide her own freedom. Life had become an empty vastness. If someone had told her she would miss DJ when he was gone Rose would have laughed in their face. But in the end returning to the Resistance had left her numb. 

Through careful searching and months of travel, Rose had been relieved to meet the band of rebel freedom fighters again, amazed at some people survived. Devastated so many had died. 

She found her sister’s name written on a stone wall in a quiet memorial on an unnamed planet. Letters etched in gold. Like that mattered. Someone had once told her that the hero’s die young.

Rose was happy to see Finn, the boy she had thought was so awesome but now felt so bland, his pretty face now too sweet like eating raw honey. He introduced his friend to the solemn eyed Jedi Rey. Rose liked the girl and was fearful of her in equal measure, she had felt things too.

Rose lived, she worked. Clothed in a Rebel uniform again, people respected her. The red dress lost somewhere in her searching for their new base. The war fought on and Rose was empty, like a glass poured out and the drops of left over liquid evaporated. 

That's how dry she was.

Nobody understood.

***

And if, you don't love me now  
You will never love me again  
I can still hear you saying  
You would never break the chain ---- The Chain, Fleetwood Mac

**Author's Note:**

> Hope the three people who probably read this story enjoyed it... 
> 
> It came from either a article, or a moment in TLJ, or from another fan fiction. The idea of DJ calling Rose 'Nobody'. Rose is Nobody - and I tried to not use her name when she is alone with DJ. Instead she only thinks in terms of Rose when there were other people around.
> 
> I hope DJ's stutter comes off at least a little realistic. Damn it's cute. Thanks again for reading.


End file.
